Cries rose for the boat to be launched. But in such a sea it was not possible to do anything. The Marianne was a wreck. No living being was on her. The captain of the coast-guard put his glass to his eye and looked steadily at the tossing—now seen, now obscured—patch that was once the Marianne. In the gathering darkness little could be distinguished.
“They’ve left her,” he said. “There’s none aboard but a dog. Hark! you can hear him bark.”
Those near held their breath.
“I can’t hear nothing,” said a seaman.
“You can if you look through my glass,” said the captain, “you can then both see and hear the little dog yapping. He wouldn’t be yapping like that unless he’d been left behind.”
“But where be they? There was Cap’n Thomas, and Simon Feathers, and Joe Wilcock, and Bill Swan.”
“Aye,” said another, “and there’s Tony Graves; his mother be here in a terrible take-on. ’Tis the first time the boy has been so far to sea.”
“Where be they?” asked the captain. “I can’t see anything of a boat. They’ve took to it, sure as I’m here, and just as certain she’s capsized.”
“Then they’ll be washed ashore, dead or alive,” said one.